Public Policy

  • August 28, 2026

    DOJ Cites National Security In $173M Ukraine Award Suit

    The Trump administration Thursday backed Ukraine as it fights efforts by one of Russia's largest oil companies to unpause litigation aimed at enforcing a confirmed $173 million arbitral award, pointing to Russia's increasing reputation as a "surveillance state with severely eroded rule-of-law protections."

  • August 28, 2026

    Ariz. Tribe Seeks To Pause Border Wall Work During Appeal

    The Tohono O'odham Nation is asking a district court to pause an order that denied its bid to block construction of a border wall near its Arizona reservation while it appeals the ruling to the D.C. Circuit, saying the federal government "plainly feels emboldened" by the decision.

  • August 28, 2026

    2 Men Sentenced For Car Crash Insurance Scam In NY

    Two men have been sentenced to prison over an insurance fraud conspiracy in which they staged car crashes on local highways — including one captured in a video that went viral on social media — New York City and state officials announced.

  • August 28, 2026

    FCC Creates New Innovation Zone In Iowa, Expands Old Ones

    For the first time in five years, the Federal Communications Commission has greenlit the creation of a new "innovation zone," which will give a university an experimental spectrum license that allows it to conduct wireless research, this time at Iowa State University.

  • August 28, 2026

    Circuit Split Raises Stakes For Timing Of Detention Review

    An emerging circuit split on whether district courts can hear habeas claims from noncitizens who say the government wants to deport them for their political speech raises questions about how quickly they can challenge the constitutionality of their detention before an independent judge.

  • August 28, 2026

    FCC Urged To Act On 5G Broadcast Petition

    Low power TV station operator HC2 Broadcasting wants the Federal Communications Commission to allow low-power broadcasters to transmit local programming via 5G signals if they want to.

  • August 28, 2026

    DOJ Says KKR's $250M Deal Will Deter HSR Violations

    The U.S. Department of Justice has issued its formal defense of a $250 million settlement with KKR & Co. and affiliated entities resolving allegations that the private equity firm repeatedly violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act's premerger notification and waiting period rules.

  • August 28, 2026

    Boston Eyes Liquor License Sold By Celebrity Chef

    The city of Boston asked a judge on Friday to block the anticipated transfer of a liquor license once held by celebrity chef Barbara Lynch, contending that Lynch's original sale of the license to its current holder was a fraudulent effort at evading what ultimately became a nearly $1 million judgment over unpaid property taxes.

  • August 28, 2026

    3rd Circ. Rejects Trump Admin's No-Bond Policy

    The Third Circuit has added to the circuit split over the Trump administration's detention without bond of unauthorized noncitizens apprehended inside the U.S., finding the policy runs afoul of the Immigration and Nationality Act and violates their due process rights.

  • August 28, 2026

    Consumer Groups Back Ore. In Fight Over Rate Opt-Out Law

    Consumer advocacy groups have rallied to Oregon's defense in litigation over its new law aimed at capping interest rates on loans from out-of-state banks, arguing the state's financial industry challengers don't have history or federal law on their side.

  • August 28, 2026

    DOL Scraps 1980s Farmworker Protection Coordination Rule

    The U.S. Department of Labor is repealing longtime regulations that required federal agencies to coordinate protections for migrant and seasonal workers, saying they are obsolete and have not been used for decades.

  • August 28, 2026

    ITC Finds Pipes From 3 Countries May Harm US Industry

    Stainless line and pressure pipes from India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates that are allegedly being sold at unfair prices appear to be harming domestic U.S. industry, the U.S. International Trade Commission preliminarily found Friday.

  • August 28, 2026

    Medical Marijuana Industry Grapples With DEA's New Role

    After years of allowing the state-sanctioned medical marijuana industry to operate without interference, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is stepping in to regulate a drug it once treated exclusively as contraband, but attorneys and regulators say the cannabis industry's interactions with the agency are off to a rocky start.

  • August 28, 2026

    Trump Admin Wants Oklahoma Smelter Suit Thrown Out

    The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to dismiss Oklahoma's challenge of a massive aluminum smelter project the Trump administration has backed with a $500 million grant, arguing that the case is premature and that the facility is vital to national security.

  • August 28, 2026

    Fla. Says PBMs Fixed Prices For Prescription Drugs

    Florida's attorney general on Thursday sued two competing pharmacy benefit managers for allegedly colluding to fix prescription drug reimbursement rates to pharmacies, which the state said threatens Floridians' access to affordable medications.

  • August 28, 2026

    NJ Law Requires Data Centers To Report Utility Usage

    New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a bill into law on Aug. 27 that requires data centers in the state to provide the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities with semiannual water and energy usage reports.

  • August 28, 2026

    Trump Denied New Bid To Federalize Hush Money Prosecution

    A New York federal judge on Friday again denied President Donald Trump's bid to move his criminal hush money conviction out of state court, finding as he did earlier that a federal law defense that Trump was operating in his official capacity would be meritless.

  • August 28, 2026

    IRS Corrects Proposed Regs On Foreign Tax Rules

    The Internal Revenue Service issued a notice Friday to correct several aspects of proposed regulations issued this month that relate to allocating foreign taxes following the repeal of a deferral election and the disallowance of foreign tax credits on certain distributions of previously taxed earnings.

  • August 28, 2026

    House Eyes Vote To Lock Supreme Court At 9 Justices

    The House returns from recess on Monday, and its agenda could include a vote to keep the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices at nine.

  • August 28, 2026

    Minnesota Urges Justices To Reject Foster Parents' ICWA Bid

    The Minnesota Attorney General's Office said two foster parents' challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act is far from over, because even if they could clear a jurisdictional bar, the Supreme Court will likely remand the dispute and leave the couple's equal protection question to be litigated another day.

  • August 28, 2026

    4 Arguments For Benefits Attys To Watch In September

    The Fifth Circuit will weigh Louisiana's bid to block telehealth access to the abortion drug mifepristone, while the Fourth Circuit will hear Lockheed Martin's challenge to a trial court decision that kept a pension de-risking suit alive. Here's a look at these and other argument sessions that should be on benefits attorneys' radar next month.

  • August 27, 2026

    Anthropic Judge Rejects Trump's Nat'l Security 'Blank Check'

    The U.S. Department of Defense's designation of Anthropic PBC as a supply chain risk to national security was not based on a credible threat, but rather was retaliation for the company's public criticism of the Trump administration's position in contract negotiations, a California federal judge ruled Thursday.

  • August 27, 2026

    Mass. Judge Halts USPS Mail Ballot Rule Before Midterms

    A Massachusetts federal judge late Thursday temporarily blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a new rule allowing it to deny delivery of mail-in ballots from voters whose names are not on citizenship lists the Trump administration is compiling ahead of November's midterms.

  • August 27, 2026

    OCC, FDIC Raise Bar For Examiners To Criticize Banks

    Federal banking regulators moved Thursday to rein in their use of supervisory warnings and enforcement actions, rolling out new standards that they said will focus examiner attention on material financial risks rather than process and documentation concerns.

  • August 27, 2026

    OpenAI Leads Corporate Push To Bolster Cyber Defense

    OpenAI and more than 100 other companies and organizations signed an open letter Thursday calling for a global surge in cyber defense, warning that artificial intelligence will make cyberattacks "more widespread and sophisticated" in the coming months.

Expert Analysis

  • More Cos. Will Copy SpaceX's Shareholder Proposal Opt-Out

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    For more than 80 years, the shareholder proposal looked like a federal right guaranteed to all public company investors, but after SpaceX opted out before its recent initial public offering, other companies are likely to follow, says Mohsen Manesh at the University of Oregon School of Law.

  • How DOJ Is Approaching Monitorship After Signaling Limits

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    As the U.S. Department of Justice keeps more monitors in place than expected, a look at the matters in which prosecutors are maintaining oversight reveals the sort of companies enforcers might trust to self-remediate, and also those that may receive independent supervision, say attorneys at Kendall Brill.

  • Opinion

    DHS' World Cup Influencer Warning Overreads Visa Law

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    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s reported position that foreign influencers covering the 2026 World Cup need work visas if their content is monetized runs contrary to both legislative intent and long-standing precedent that structure the visa inquiry around labor market substitution, says Jun Li at Reid & Wise.

  • 3 Steps For Banks As Section 1071 Rule Finally Becomes Final

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    Some community banks and other lenders will get some breathing room in the final Section 1071 rule exempting them from small business lending reporting duties, but other reporting institutions should update applications, systems and staff training ahead of the 2028 compliance date, says Memrie Fortenberry at Jones Walker.

  • Why DOE Isn't Phasing Out Appliance Efficiency Regs

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    While the U.S. Department of Energy recently acted on President Donald Trump's 2025 executive order requiring it to consider sunsetting many energy regulations, the DOE has not proposed phasing out efficiency standards for appliances and industrial equipment — but it could pursue other approaches to ease such requirements, say attorneys at HWG.

  • Series

    Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

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    Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings from cases involving allegations of internet data misuse, consumer fraud claims, immigration, insurance and First Amendment violation claims.

  • Justices' FCC Fine Ruling May Weaken Agency Leverage

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T upheld the commission's forfeiture framework as consistent with Jarkesy, but it is also likely to reduce the effectiveness of the commission’s forfeiture proceedings as a collection and deterrence tool, say attorneys at Venable.

  • Takeaways From 1st Del. Ruling Applying Moelis Amendments

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    Delaware corporations should carefully review contractual arrangements and governance documents following the Court of Chancery's recent enforcement of a non-Delaware forum selection clause in a CEO's employment agreement under 2024 amendments to the state's General Corporation Law, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

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    An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

  • Google Antitrust Case Puts Spotlight On De Facto Exclusivity

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    Mozilla's recent amicus filing in U.S. v. Google arguing that its agreement to make Google the default search engine did not amount to de facto exclusivity highlights the growing debate over traditional indicators of exclusivity, with implications for any business that uses rebates, preferred contracts or volume incentives, says Chris Gowen at WilmU Farnan School of Law.

  • Justices' Montgomery Ruling Doesn't Expand Shipper Liability

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    Whether negligent hiring liability claims against shippers will increase after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II is anyone's guess, but the ruling itself will have no impact on shippers' actual liability in personal injury claims relating to trucking accidents, says Ronald Leibman at McCarter & English.

  • GHG Rescission Undermines State Climate Suit Preemption

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    As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the fate of state climate litigation in Suncor Energy Inc. v. Boulder County, it must confront the fact that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rescission of its greenhouse gas endangerment finding has also removed the foundation for federal preemption of state climate suits, says attorney Gregg Goldfarb.

  • Constructing AI Compliance Plans As State Laws Diverge

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    With Colorado, Connecticut and the federal government recently announcing wildly different approaches to artificial intelligence regulation, creating a workable compliance program means addressing overlapping obligations using shared systems rather than separate silos, say attorneys at Ogletree.

  • How McDonnell Still Shapes Bribery Defense Strategy

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    The pending federal bribery allegations against Washington, D.C., Council member Trayon White Sr. highlight for defense counsel the importance of overcoming the “official act” requirement established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in McDonnell v. U.S., and juries' critical role in distinguishing between official and unofficial acts, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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